News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

PAUL JAY: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself. I’m Paul Jay. This is The Real News Network, and we’re continuing our discussion with Daniel Ellsberg. Thanks for joining us again.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Good to be here.

PAUL JAY: If there was a president elected, and if there are, for example, in the Democratic Party enough people elected to Congress who are breaking from the kind of militarist position, what would you recommend? What does a plan look like?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, first of all, realize that neither party has promised any departure from our reliance on the military-industrial complex. Since McGovern, in effect. And he was the only one, I think, who—and his defeat taught many Democratic politicians they could not run for office with that kind of burden of dispossessing, even temporarily, the workers of Grumman, Northrup and General Dynamics and Lockheed, and the shipbuilders in Connecticut, and so forth. And [grutton].

So it would take a different political economy, or it would take a different movement in pressing our Congress, and basically a different kind of Democrat from any we’ve seen. Our system is a two-party system, which people can find by looking at Wikipedia, the web in general, and asking the question, what is a two-party system? And the answer to that is one that most people don’t realize. It’s based not just on the strength of the existing two parties, but on the fact that we have a system of single-member constituencies, winner take all, not first past the post. These are terms that can be quickly found out if you look them up. It’s a political system that makes it extremely unlikely that a third party will actually succeed, and is why no party has succeeded since 1860, when the Democrats were split on the issue of slavery.

By the way, if there was a third party on the right, I’d be all for that. Because that would enable a really progressive Democrat to be nominated, I think, and actually to win. But without that, a requirement, I think, as early as this year, in 2018, is a Democratic House and/or Senate. Preferably both; Senate is more difficult. Is a requirement, but very far from sufficient to make any of these changes. In the past, the Democrats have not been willing to do that. And almost no Democratic candidate, even the most progressive of them, has really addressed the idea of conversion, which is the prerequisite for any of the other changes on climate and health and education that are needed.

PAUL JAY: Conversion of military production to green, sustainable production.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Spending has to change away from the ability to destroy life on earth, primarily. And that, without either total disarmament—I am not a total pacifist, and never have been, although it’s very hard, be very hard put to find a conflict since the Second World War, that’s a long time ago, where I thought it was necessary or worthwhile for the U.S. to be engaged. And I used to make an exception for Korea. More study on that has recently changed my mind on that.

But I think, in fact, for the Russians, for the British, ultimately for the Americans to oppose Nazi Germany under Hitler and his ambitions, his recklessness, was justified. That is my strong opinion. But without that, and without giving any other country a monopoly of nuclear weapons, let’s say, by the U.S. totally disarming nuclear weapons, I don’t think it would serve world peace to give, adequately, to give Russia a monopoly of nuclear weapons. Not that they would immediately start throwing them around, by any means. But that it would embolden them in ways that would not be good for world peace, or ultimately avoiding nuclear war.

But that’s not the issue. The issue is whether we continue to sustain a doomsday machine of the kind we have, whether we continue to modernize it with the B61-12 bombs, and so many others—on both sides, by the way. Or whether we can move away from that. Doomsday can be made impossible. And not, actually, in some Utopian way that we’ve never seen in the world, even in the nuclear age. China went for decades after their first explosion in ‘64, when I was in the Pentagon, not building a large nuclear force. For decades they had only a dozen or so ICBMs against the United States, at a time when we could have launched thousands of weapons against China.

Now, how did they rationalize that? At first we said, well, they can’t afford to. They’re too poor. But within 20 years, certainly 30 years ago, that didn’t work. They obviously could match, achieve parity, as they say, with the U.S. or Russia. They absolutely could. They’ve chosen not to spend money in ways that threaten doomsday, and threaten their own deterrence, by making us fear they’re about to disarm us. China has never pretended to have the capability to disarm a major adversary. They don’t, even though they have two rockets-

PAUL JAY: By disarm you mean first strike.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: By a first strike. They don’t have that capability. They have, perhaps, 300 warheads now, mostly tactical, against Russia [in their area]. But many, several dozen, strategic warheads. More than they need. Enough to cause nuclear winter. But less than 10 percent of what we have. China, in other words, has followed a relatively sane policy in the nuclear era, I would say, if any nuclear policy can be sane. And I would say, actually, they have. They bought themselves a good deal of deterrence with a handful of weapons capability, and didn’t go beyond that.

We could, we could … the world would be much safer, we would be safer, if we had no more weapons than the Chinese. Likewise, the Russians. And that would be true whether the Russians imitated that or not. The same would be true for the Russians. They would be safer from a false alarm on our side, let’s say, against a Russian, supposedly surprise attack, if they dismantled their ability for a surprise attack.

PAUL JAY: And this underlying idea that the Soviet Union is trying to take over the world, it seems to me it’s just as true about modern-day Russia is also not trying to take over the world. There’s no reason to think Russia would not comply in such a scenario.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Yes. As you say that, you know, I don’t think the U.S. is trying to take over the world by military means, although our military spending is so vastly greater than [the combination].

PAUL JAY: No, I wasn’t saying the—I wasn’t saying that.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: I don’t think anybody is. But certainly Russia, it would be absurd to say that’s what they’re trying to do.

PAUL JAY: So why don’t they move to that? It’s the only sane move-

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Why don’t they, you said?

PAUL JAY: Well, all three. I mean, China’s already in a relatively modest position. One would think, instead of developing new hypersonic planes, and new bombs, the sane course is a modest amount.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: I can only guess. For much the same reasons we do it. On the one hand, as Gorbachev has indicated, as I say, to a friend of mine, Cynthia Lazaroff, in Russia, they have their profit motive over their [inaudible] again. They’re supporters of Putin. Their oligarchs are not all drug dealers. Some of them are arms makers, as over here.

Second, the idea of being a great power has domestic politics implications, and implications in negotiations in general. Status, prestige. The only reason, by the way, for the UK or France to have nuclear weapons at this time, to be in the nuclear club. To be a shadow, at least, of their former imperial selves. To be one of the big boys.

There’s—in terms of how many weapons are actually needed for the deterrence of nuclear attack, which I think is not an entirely, is not an illusory notion altogether, what does it take? Dr. Herbert York, the physicist who was the first director of Livermore Nuclear Weapons Design Laboratory, one of our two laboratories; Los Alamos, and … which produced the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and Livermore. He was the first director of Livermore, which was set up in particular as the home of Edward Teller, and to press H-bomb development. He said in a meeting at Livermore later, years later, after he’d been head of the research and engineering in the Defense Department, and major arms negotiator for several, for several administrations, asked the question, how many weapons are needed to deter nuclear attack from an enemy rational enough to be deterred? To be influenced? He said, one? Or ten? He said, perhaps 100. Not more than that. But closer to 10 … sorry. Closer to 1 than 100. [That’ll be like] 49.

He went at it from one other point of view, too. He said, what is the largest amount of destruction that we think one man, or one nation, should be able to inflict in a short period of time on another, on the world? Supposing we take World War II as an upper limit there, 60 million dead in a short time. That would take about 100 weapons. Largest, maybe 200. But more likely 100 weapons. So again, he says one to ten to 100 weapons. Now, of the nine nuclear states, North Korea is the only one who’s clearly below that level. We, of course, are many more, ten times more than that. And [coughing] I would say that no nation in the world can actually justify having as many weapons as the least of them, putting aside North Korea.

PAUL JAY: What is the rationale, and does it play any real deterrent for Israel to have nuclear weapons?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Yeah. Well, Israel’s nuclear weapons are only first use weapons. Their adversaries have no nuclear weapons. So like us in the late ‘40s, their plans are only first use. First strike. Not for responding to nuclear weapons. Still, they are faced with, as NATO felt it was faced, by large adversarial forces, non-nuclear. If you add them all together, if you put them together, they have relied on their first use threat. They’re said to have some 80 weapons.

Now, what would they do with 80 weapons? Actually, a better figure is—I’ve seen other estimates. It’s very likely closer to 200. But whether it’s 80 or 200, how can anyone, how can Israel, justify having that many? That’s 80. But we have, you know, 1500 on alert, thermonuclear weapons. How about, when you go above Israel, then, you get in the level of 100, 140 or so, when you look at Pakistan, India. Those are atomic weapons, fission weapons. Or Britain and France, either have on the order of 100-200. None of these countries could really justify in hearings, rational hearings, having that many, as a matter of fact. And we, come back to it, have more than 10 times more.

PAUL JAY: So why does Israel have so many?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Probably—I don’t know the answer, actually. But for reasons like ours. Probably a lot of theirs, by the way, they think of as tactical weapons, many of them may be neutron bombs, who would be used against armies in the desert. I doubt it. They wouldn’t need that many—they wouldn’t need 10 against cities.

PAUL JAY: But there would be nothing left of Israel after blowing up all these bombs.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: No, no, no. The—and the fallout-

PAUL JAY: Whether the—by fallout. Whether the enemy has nuclear weapons or not, there wouldn’t be anything much of an Israel left.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Sam Cohen, the father of the neutron bomb, was convinced that Israel had built his neutron bombs; that they had seen the advantage of those—which are weapons, by the way, which if they explode at a high altitude don’t cause a lot, if any, fallout, and actually don’t destroy structures. They penetrate through structures or tanks, and they kill the living organisms inside, the humans. The Communists at that time called it a capitalist weapon; it preserved property and killed only humans. But the Soviets, like Reagan after President Carter, almost surely did build neutron bombs and test them.

So with a lot of those, you could think of those as tactical weapons in the desert. They are [faced] in the desert. I don’t know their planning [worth] knowing. In the case of India and Pakistan, for example, they have so far only fission weapons. A hundred of those, 50 each in a war against cities, a country, would cause the absorption of about 7 percent of the sunlight. Not nuclear winter, which U.S. and Russia would absorb perhaps 20 … 70 percent of the sunlight, and starve everyone. India-Pakistan would cut sunlight by 7 percent, shortening the harvest, killing the harvest, depending on the season, and probably cause by starvation 2 billion deaths of the most ill-nourished people in the world. That’s the calculation of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Ira Helfand and others have calculated that. Something between 1-2 billion, one third of the earth’s population.

If, however, testing resumes, as the Republicans for a long time have been proposing should be, should happen, as a matter of fact; and Russian labs are said to be anxious to resume testing. If testing resumed, India and Pakistan would quickly achieve H-bombs. They’re on the verge of it now. North Korea, again, has claimed it has tested an H-bomb. May or may not, but certainly would need more tests to have an operational H-bomb. That would give them a full nuclear winter capability. So a war between India and Pakistan wouldn’t kill only one third of the earth’s populations, but three thirds, like ours. The in between nations, the UK, France, China and the others, perhaps may or may not be able to get a full nuclear winter. But they can starve, if they launch their forces as they plan, including cities like Moscow and other capital cities; many other cities with command and control. They would reflect sunlight. Between 1-7 billion. Probably somewhere in between.

There’s no excuse. These are, I say, evil outcomes, certainly. And plans that risk them or prepare for them have their uses, but at the risk of causing this effect, which I would say is absolutely unconscionable, as well as a vast diversion of the world’s resources that are needed otherwise.

Daniel Ellsberg ends his book, The Doomsday Machine, Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner with this:

“Is it simply quixotic to hope to preserve human civilization from either the effects of burning fossil fuels or preparing for nuclear war? As Martin Luther King Jr. warned us,328 one year to the day before his death, “There is such a thing as being too late.” In challenging us on April 4, 1967, to recognize “the fierce urgency of now” he was speaking of the “madness of Vietnam,” but he also alluded on that same occasion to nuclear weapons and to the even larger madness that has been the subject of this book: “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.”

He went on: “We must move past indecision to action.… If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. … Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.”

PAUL JAY: Thanks for joining us.

And thank you for joining us on Reality Asserts Itself—one hopes this is not a reality that is going to assert itself—on The Real News Network.

Posted by: AGelbert

USS Pennsylvania is a United States Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine which has been in commission since 1989. The Ohio class is a class of nuclear powered submarines used by the United States Navy. The Navy has 18 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and guided missile submarines.

Posted by: AGelbert

The US and Russia are now in a new NUCLEAR arms race . Plutonium pits, those deadly little hollow balls of Plutonium that get injected with Tritium nano-seconds before a hydrogen bomb goes off, which we ALREADY have thhousands of sitting in warehouses in TEXAS, are now all the NEW THING to FUND in the Trump adminsitration. The new ones are a nuclear welfare queen operation to save Senator Graham's arse since the Mox making plant he championed has gone so far over budget that it had to be cancelled.

This new cold war is nuts. These are not just weapons of mass destruciton; they are weapons of GLOBAL destruction.

Hear all about it at Radio Echoshock:

Two Dangerous Myths Exposed

Posted on May 23, 2018, by Radio Ecoshock 📢

Scientist Mary Booth says the new drive to burn wood as a replacement for coal is backfiring in the atmosphere. Jay Coghlan on the arcane world of “plutonium pits” – the trigger for nuclear weapons. If you like ultimate gambling, this is it, on Radio Ecoshock 180523

reuters logoBy Vladimir Soldatkin MOSCOW, May 21 (Reuters) – Russia’s first-floating nuclear power plant arrived in the Arctic port of Murmansk over the weekend in preparation for its maiden mission, providing electricity to an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska.

The state company behind the plant, called the “Akademik Lomonosov,” says it could pioneer a new power source for remote regions of the planet, but green campaigners have expressed concern about the risk of nuclear accidents. Greenpeace has called it the “nuclear Titanic.”😱

The nuclear and coal industries have gone bankrupt. Donald Trump🦀 just sat down for dinner with a lobbyist to make you pay to keep dangerous old reactors (and coal!) going. We cover the scam with nuke campaigner Kevin Kamps from Beyond Nuclear.

Then strange new science: plants in a high carbon atmosphere determine who gets the crops, and who gets the drought. We hear from Dr. Pierre Gentine of Columbia University.

The future is already here, on Radio Ecoshock.

Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Posted by: AGelbert

We’re celebrating mothers this month! Make a donation for peace in your mother’s honor or memory.

Perspectives

U.S. Should Accept Putin’s Offer to Negotiate on Nukes by David KriegerA New Generation Against the Bomb by Ray AchesonLooking Reality in the Eye by Rick WaymanPeace in Korea? Hope and Uncertainty Mix in the Wake of Kim-Moon Summit by Cesar JaramilloPanmunjeom Declaration by Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

U.S. Continues Testing ICBMsNuclear DisarmamentMore Nations Set to Ratify Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

War and Peace

North Korean Leader Visits South Korea for First Time in HistoryIsraeli Prime Minister Claims to Have Proof of Iranian Nuclear Program

Nuclear Waste

Four Barrels of Nuclear Waste Rupture in Idaho

Nuclear Insanity😱

Lawsuit Filed Over Plan to Allow Public in Radioactive Zone

Resources

This Month in Nuclear Threat HistoryRussian Nuclear Forces in 2018Podcast on the Nuclear AgeICRC President Issues Appeal on Risk of Nuclear Weapons

Foundation Activities

NAPF Event at the United Nations in GenevaBuilding Peace Literacy with the Corvallis School DistrictMoms Against Bombs30th Annual DC Days

Posted by: AGelbert

Not even Trump's ongoing middle school shoving match with North Korea's Kim Jong-un and his growing nuclear toybox appears to have ruffled a great many feathers around here. Perhaps it's the surreal nature of this president and his administration that explains our national shrug at this incredibly dangerous, feckless faceoff. It's a strange plot twist in a weird animation starring two cartoon characters ordering bombs from the Acme catalog. Who could take these guys seriously?

Enter Robert R. Monroe, Vice Admiral, US Navy (Ret.) 🦖 and his recent article in The Hill titled, "Only Trump Can Restore America's Ability to Win a Nuclear War." Vice Admiral Monroe, former director of the Defense Nuclear Agency, is the kind of man Curtis LeMay would have recognized as a brother on sight. "When the Cold War ended in 1991," laments Monroe in his opening line, "America made an unwise decision."

An arsenal of smaller bombs is key to Admiral Monroe's fever dream of a winnable nuclear war. It is a dream Trump🦀 appears to share.

Posted by: AGelbert

The President of the United States, a man whose father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and whose public speaking ability has degraded so dramatically over the last 20 years that watching him say stupid things in 1999 actually makes you nostalgic for that guy, told his top security officials that he wanted “tens of thousands of new nuclear weapons,”which inspired his Chief of Staff to call him a “moron.”

The President of the United States has more power at this moment than at essentially any other time in American history and, if he wanted, could launch a nuclear attack entirely on his own and no one could stop him. “If President Trump were to decide that it’s time to put Kim Jong Un in his place once and for all, he would choose a plan that already exists,” a “former nuclear missile launch officer” told USA Today. “And it would be almost impossible in my view to override a decision to implement that option.”

Fellow lawmakers and high-level cabinet members are so concerned about Trump’s instability they have been actively trying to come up with some sort of Fail/Safe backup plan to Trump launching nuclear weapons, and their attempts have been thwarted at every turn. A sitting United States Senator actually said, on record, “We are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic that he might order a nuclear weapons strike.” (This insane, flabbergasting statement was made just more than a month ago, so you’ve surely forgotten about it.)

North Korea, the foreign government most likely to pique the President’s nuclear launch trigger finger, successfully pulled off a test less than a month ago that showed they could hit a U.S. mainline target with little difficulty. Secretary of Defense James Mattis responded to the news warning that North Korea could now strike anywhere in the world. The President responded by calling the leader of North Korea short and fat.

During the Cold War, leaders of wealthy, stable, established nations were hinting at nuclear standoffs, and talking about missile defense systems, and testing thermonuclear weapons, and it led to three decades of apocalyptic popular fiction, fallout shelters being installed all across the country and schoolchildren being taught how to shield themselves from debris and radiation in case of a nuclear attack. It was the central organizing principle of most of the second half of the 20th century. It, singularly, affected every aspect of American life.

And there were so many more protections then than there are now. Now there are non-state actors who would give any amount of money or human capital to get a hold of a nuclear weapon, of which, from the old Soviet Union, there are thousands of unaccounted for. There is an escalating threat from a desperate nation led by a madman whose only reference point for American life is Dennis Rodman. And there is the doddering cable news addict in the Oval Office who only seems to understand what Brian Kilmeade tells him.

SNIPPET 2:

Quote

I was eight years old when Testament hit cinemas, just a little bit older than Lukas Haas in the film. I didn’t see it in the theater: It wasn’t until a decade later, on Roger Ebert’s recommendation, that I finally watched it. I wouldn’t have been able to understand it when I was eight. I would just been upset E.T wasn’t in it. But I wonder if my parents watched it.

Until I watched it last week, for the first time in many years, I couldn’t have fathomed how my parents — who had an eight-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter, two people whom they loved very much and wanted to see grow up and become adult humans with lives and children of their own — could have handled it. These children they loved so much, they ones they protected with an almost feral passion, how could they not think about them when they watched the Wetherly family wilt away and die? When my mother watched Carol’s increased panic when she looked for that bear, did she look at me, still with my favorite blanket, and wonder if she’d someday have to bury it with me? How did my dad feel when he went away on work trips, after watching this movie when one day, randomly, out of nowhere, the world exploded and he wasn’t there with his family? To live in that time and feel like it all going away was a real, vivid possibility ... how did they bear it?

I’m legitimately asking. Because unlike every other time I had watched Testament, I am a father now, of two beautiful little boys who are obnoxious and gassy and loud and just about the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in my life. Every day my wife and I look at them and see the boys they are becoming, the men they will someday be, and we are thrilled, we are elated, we are driven near to tears to see them growing up, to learn more every day what they have to offer this planet. I find myself envious of everyone who hasn’t met them yet. You are going to love them, world. I think of what they might be, what they might do, the mistakes they are going to make, the times they get their hearts broken, the hearts they break, the goodness that radiates off them, and I think that maybe they might be the only worthwhile thing I’ve done with my whole stupid life. I can’t wait to see who they become.

But Testament warns: Don’t assume the future. It can all be taken away, forever, from everybody. Just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen now. That it hasn’t happened before actually makes it more likely it will happen now. It is a threat, to you, to me, to everybody you love, to everybody I love. There are so many threats, so much danger in the world. But this is the biggest one. It makes you want to run through the streets screaming. It makes you wonder why not everyone is.

Toward the end of Testament, the school puts on the Pied Piper play. The bombs have fallen. People have already started dying. There is no word from the outside. There are no longer any illusions as to what is happening. But the play goes on anyway. What else can you do? The youngest son comes out, as the Pied Piper, and gives his closing speech as the Piper. “Your children are not gone,” he says. “They are just waiting for a world that deserves them.” Every parent in the audience sobs. They know what world they’ve given their children, and what it means for all of them. The question is: Do we?

Agelbert Full disclosure: I saw this movie more than once.

As an Intelligence Operations Specialist in the Air National Guard during the cold war years, I can tell you that movie was too kind. For example, in the movie, Canada was discussed as a refuge. That is a cruel joke. Air patterns over the northern hemisphere quickly make Canada a DEAD ZONE, even if not a single nuke goes off there. The only (temporary) refuge areas would be in the southern hemisphere near Antarctica. But even those areas go down within a decade too.

The threat of planetary devastation was, and is, much, much worse. I haven't forgotten the danger. Also, I firmly believe that "we" (i.e. 99% of humanity) DO know what kind of a world we want for our children, but we-the-people DO NOT have a say in that outcome.

The goal of the 1% bastards in charge is a Mount Olympus type existence with a sprinkling of we-the-people here and there to use as playthings and objects of perverse sport. This precludes nuclear war.

WHY? The 1% elite bastards are all insane with hubris and illusions of grandeur, but they are not stupid.

The 1% (more or less) are the "WE" that have not unleashed nuclear mayhem in this planet simply because of their own "enlightened" (SEE: 'greed is good') self interest. They KNOW that radionuclide contamination is FOREVER, for all practical purposes. They don't like "forever" (i.e. 25,000 plus years of dna 24/7 destruction all the way to the microbial level).

Theylike the engineered "boom and bust" cycles of Capitalism where a bunch of "useless eaters" routinely get offed by war, plague, tsunami, global warming or whatevah, just as long as these periods are

A) Brief

B) Profitable for the 1% and

C) Don't damage the biosphere beyond some elite scam that can be run to make we-the-people pay to keep the elite portion of it reasonably healthy.

But to their folly, they do not now, or ever did, give a rat's ass about the human gene pool. They are NOT impressed by scientists who warn these 'greed is good' psychopaths that the human dna diversity produced by a large population is sine qua non to Homo sap genetic health.

The bottom line big plan for these elite bastards is to gradually get rid of most of us "useless eaters" in a way that can be plausibly denied by the media these elite bastards control.

It is working. Life expectancy and sperm count is dropping EVERYWHERE on the planet. Robots with AI will soon be able to do absolutely any physical or intellectual labor humans now do. The world where the average person lives is turning into one big Reservation and the 99% are getting the same treatment that whitey has given the Native Americans in the USA.

It's a gradual thing where you destroy the moral fiber of a people by denying them decent health care, work, dignity, etc. while, at the same time, you claim you are "helping them with charity".

Yeah, their Mens Rea Modus Operandi is ultimately suicidally stupid, but their lack of empathy limits their ability to see how their greed is destroying their chances to pass a viable biosphere to their children.

Unless and until God directly intervenes, the ultimate plan by the 1% is for most of us to die quietly in poverty in a gradual 90% reduction of the human population. Our cold comfort is that, only when most of us are gone, will the 1% realize that they killed themselves.

Posted by: AGelbert

"One out of three Americanslives within 50 milesof high-level nuclear waste, some of which, like Plutonium, is lethally dangerous and will be around for an incredible longtime," John Oliver explained last night on Last Week Tonight.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, there is more than 71,000 tons of nuclear waste stranded at 104 reactors. "It was a problem we should have solved in the 1980s," Oliver said, "much like a Rubik's Cube."

Despite years of using nuclear energy, the country still doesn't have a permanent facility for its storage, the comedian said. Oliver proposed what the U.S. really needs is some kind of "nuclear toilet."

Posted by: AGelbert

Agelbert NOTE: Unsaid in this video is WHY Saturn's moons that might harbor life must be protected from the Cassini probe.

I'm glad you asked. You see, Cassini has PLUTONIUM fuel. So Saturn is going to get smacked with an element that did not exist before human nuclear physics experiments formed it.

Saturn is a big gas giant so it probably will not be a problem. But if Cassini had fallen on a moon, it would definitely be a problem for humans if we ever wanted to visit there, never mind any life there now.

Had Cassini failed to make orbit back in 1997, and distributed it's plutonium fuel all over our atmosphere the cancer rates (all cancers, not just lung cancers), which have QUADRUPLED since the 1950's , would be even higher than they are now.

You see, you only need a teeny, tiny microscopic amount of plutonium in your lungs to give you cancer. So, a few pounds of the stuff dissipated throughout the atmpsphere can threaten the health of millions of people and animals, plus cause deleterious mutations throughout the biosphere.

If you think this is hyperbole, please research the SNAP orbital failure and compare the cancer rates all over the Southern hemisphere AFTER that acccident dosed it with some plutonium (over the years) with those before.

This is a snippet of the sanitized version of that accident:SNAP-10A, also called SNAPSHOT is an experimental nuclear powered satellite launched into space in 1965. It is the only fission power system launched into space by the United States. The reactor stopped working after just 43 days due to a (non-nuclear) electrical component failure.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A

They leave a lot of facts about plutonium contamination out, just as the video (delivered with the required fawningly religious tone) below doesn't even directly address the plutonium hazard for life in the Cassini probe.

Cassini to be directed to disintegrate in Saturn's atmosphere in September of 2017.

I rarely take the time to watch most of the videos posted here because they are so long, and life is short. But I watched this one. It was really good and explained the impact of Arctic navigation well. Great find.

This would be a good time to start equipping your Bugout Machine and picking Bugout Locations.

RE

Thank you Surly and RE for your thoughtful comments.

It was interesting to note how the USA bent the Canadians out of shape in 1985 (Reagan and Bush must have enjoyed that.) when that U.S. Ice Breaker transited the 'Northwest Passage' without checking in with Canada.

Here's another video that everybody in the USA should pay very close attention to. It is a keeper because it accurately describes the mindset of the M.I.C. (i.e. THEY plan to survive ANY Doomsday Scenario, whether we-the-people survive or not! ). Here's what you need to know about Continuity of the Government M.I.C.

Posted by: AGelbert

The Department of Energy declared an emergency Tuesday at a plutonium-handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state after a tunnel partly collapsed. Federal officials said, there was "no indication of a release of contamination at this point."

Hundreds of Workers were told to evacuate or take cover as officials responded to reports of "a cave-in of a 20 foot section of a tunnel that is hundreds of feet long that is used to store contaminated materials," according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

"The tunnel itself was breached. There was a 20-foot wide hole," a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said by telephone from the Hanford Joint Information Center.

The tunnel, located next to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility, also known as PUREX, is in the center of Hanford in an area known as the 200 East Area.

"The PUREX facility is one of Hanford's most contaminated areas," Dan Serres, conservation director at Columbia Riverkeeper, told EcoWatch. "It was the source for the majority of Hanford's weapons plutonium, and Hanford itself produced more than two-thirds of the plutonium in the U.S."

"The tunnel collapse is a disturbing event, and we hope for the safety of all the workers in the area," Serres continued. "Their work is critical to protecting our region and the Columbia River. Looking forward, we will be watching closely to see how the U.S. Department of Energy continues the cleanup effort in this area and throughout the Hanford site."

The Energy Department said via Twitter that Sec. Perry "has been briefed on the incident." The most recent update from the DOE, said crews were continuing to monitor the air as employees were being released early as a precaution."This is a potentially serious event," Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said. "I can see why the site ordered emergency measures. Collapse of the earth covering the tunnels could lead to a considerable radiological release."

The Hanford site, in southeastern Washington about 170 miles east of Seattle, is known for being the most contaminated nuclear site in the country. The facility made more than 20 million pieces of uranium metal fuel for nine nuclear reactors along the Columbia River. The reactors produced plutonium for America's defense program. Production ended at the facility in the late 1980s, and cleanup began in 1989, after a landmark agreement between the DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Washington state.

According to a report late last year from the Oregon Public Broadcasting:

"Hanford is the nation's largest nuclear cleanup site, with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste sitting in old, leaky underground tanks just a few hours upriver from Portland. After more than 20 years and $19 billion[,] not a drop of waste has been treated.

"Hanford sits next to the Columbia River. It was one of the original Manhattan Project sites. Its nine nuclear reactors irradiated uranium fuel rods. That created plutonium, which was extracted with chemicals, processed and shipped to weapons factories. Each step produced radioactive waste. ...

"The stored waste has to be treated in special rooms called black cells, which are too radioactive for humans to enter. The machinery in these black cells is supposed to operate for 40 years with no direct human intervention.

Thom talks with Kevin Kamps (Radioactive Waste Watchdog - Beyond Nuclear) about the drastic effects of radioactivity still seeping out of the nuclear plant at Fukushima, and reaching our shores and our stores.

Posted by: AGelbert

The new procedure laid out in the reform bill to search for a final nuclear waste repository is a step in the right direction, but involving the public will not prevent protests, writes Uwe Westdörp in an opinion piece in Osnabrücker Zeitung. “In the end, it will again be a political decision – and there will be many people who will see themselves as the losers, because their home is turned into a nuclear toilet,” writes Westdörp.

Posted by: AGelbert

What you’re about to see is a profound presentation that’s taken Fairewinds almost a year to develop. The topic today is the CO2 smokescreen.I was in the nuclear industry and built nuclear power plants in the 70’s and the 80’s, and I can assure you that when those plants were built, they had absolutely nothing to do with carbon dioxide and global warming.The bottom line here is that 35 years in the future, that this nuclear plants that are proposed are only going to mitigate carbon dioxide by about 6 percent. And what I’d like you to do today – I’m going to ignore for the purposes of this presentation the desecration of native lands from mining, the desecration of Fukushima Prefecture and other areas that might be destroyed from nuclear disasters; and also, of course, the long-term storage for a million years of the nuclear waste. So let’s just set all of those liabilities aside and talk about money.And what I’d like to do for the first half of this presentation is focus on the impact that the nukes that are running right now are having on the environment.438 plants that the nuclear industry will tell you are critically needed, and if we shut them down, we’re going to melt the arctic ice – are only contributing 3 percent.So each power plant reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 7/1000’s of 1 percent. (...)FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE: http://www.fairewinds.org/nuclear-ene...

CO2 Smoke Screen: New Nukes Make Global Warming Worse uncovers the ludicrously small impact that nuclear power has on saving the Earth from CO2 emissions in contrast to the promises of the atomic power industry. Well received by fellow experts in the field and filmed by award winning photographer Martin Duckworth, the CO2 Smoke Screen is the culmination of one year’s worth of research and hard work by the Fairewinds Crew, Fairewinds science advisors, and a group of amazing interns from the University of Vermont (UVM).

CO2 Smoke Screen: New Nukes Make Global Warming Worse had its debut presentation at the 2016 World Social Forum at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). Invited to present both a keynote speech and during workshops, Fairewinds’ Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen and Program Administrator Caroline Aronson attended the Montreal Forum and made presentations at UQAM and McGill University, where Mr. Gundersen shared a condensed version of the “CO2 Smoke Screen” keynote and addressed the issue of radiation releases from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean.

A groundbreaking presentation like the CO2 Smoke Screen takes time, hard work, and funding for the Fairewinds Energy Education Crew to conduct the necessary research and create the videos, podcasts, and newsletters we share with you.

Your donations to Fairewinds Energy Education non-profit provide the funding necessary to produce work of this quality, and it also feeds the fire to push forward, to do more for you, our viewers and listeners. The information we provide on www.fairewinds.org is free for all to read and share, but it takes money to produce. That’s where you can step in and help support Fairewinds. http://tinyurl.com/gp7yrwy

BONUS LINK: Donald Trump Addresses this topic in the following campaign speech last week: https://youtu.be/PJAjoQ4J5pk?t=56m10s called Donald Trump Disassembles Teleprompter In The Middle Of Campaign Rally In North Carolina! at 56:10 into the video.

Posted by: AGelbert

Extreme rains will breach to unseen levels, says new science led by Dr. David Neelin from University of California. Our cities and farms are not ready. Arnie Gundersen on his trip to Fukushima Japan, and the risks of Trump with the nuclear codes.

Agelbert NOTE: Don't miss the second half of this audio podcast. Nuclear Engineer describes, including all the trouble he and his wife have endured for telling the truth (isince 1990!), how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission DOES NOT now enforce the regulations on the books, never mind what Trump wants to do to help the nuke polluters even more.

And ALL the nuke assemblies and parts for nuclear power plants, new or used in the USA, are NOW manufactured in CHINA, so there is NO WAY that building nukes is really going to help Trump bring jobs here anyway.

He also recounts the inhuman behavior of the Japanese government NOW. They will NOT reimburse a doctor that treats a person for radiation sickness (hair falling out, vomiting, bleeding gums) UNLESS the doctor states the reason for the symptoms is "stress".

Posted by: AGelbert

The President-elect's off-the-cuff, ignorant and inconsistent remarks suggests he's either a cynical war profiteer or a true believer in the American myth that more militarism leads to fewer wars, says Noble Prize nominee David Swanson

Posted by: AGelbert

Germany’s federal cabinet has agreed on a law that is aimed at facilitating the search for a final repository for the country’s nuclear waste by 2031, the Federal Ministry for the Environment has said in a press release. Environment minister Barbara Hendricks said that “historically speaking”, the law perhaps was her most important one in this legislative period and was going to “put an end to the nuclear waste chaos”, Michael Bauchmüller writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to Hendricks, the search conducted over the next 15 years is going to be based on “broad and transparent public participation” and will be conducted across Germany. “The search for a nuclear repository is not going to be any easier now”, Bauchmüller says, but “its much debated start is coming closer”, he adds.

For background read the CLEW factsheet What to do with the nuclear waste – the storage question.

Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz

“Living a lie”

The problem of finding a final repository for Germany’s nuclear waste does not have “a solution in the true sense of the word, but only makeshift at best”, Reinhard Breidenbach writes in an opinion piece for Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz. Advocates of nuclear power production have been “living a lie” from the beginning, Breidenbach says, adding that the technology “actually does not help with anything but only creates absolutely inacceptable risks”. The “so-called temporary storage” was a “highly explosive farce” many generations to come are going to be burdened with, according to Breidenbach.

For background read the CLEW dossier The challenges of Germany’s nuclear phase-out.

Posted by: AGelbert

The MV Sigrid is designed to transport up to 12 nuclear waste containers. Photo: SKB

A Swedish cargo ship designed to haul radioactive waste ran into a little trouble Friday outside the harbor of a decommissioned nuclear power plant in southeastern Sweden.

The Swedish Maritime Administration confirmed that the MV Sigrid had a pilot on board when it ran aground at about 8 a.m. as it approached the Barsebäck nuclear power plant.

Barsebäck nuclear power plant

The ship was not carrying any dangerous cargo , the administration and the ship’s owner confirmed.

Wind at the time was about 10 to 12 knots.

A tugboat, two coast guard vessels and a ship inspector from the Swedish Transport Agency were sent to assist the vessel, confirming that no oil was leaking from the ship.

By noon, a tug was able to free the Sigrid and pull it into deeper water. Within a few hours, divers were able to confirm that there was no damage to ship’s hull or propellers.

The cause of the grounding is under investigation.

The nuclear cargo vessel MV Sigrid was delivered in 2013 by Damen’s Galati Shipyard in Romania to the Swedish Nuclear Waste Management Company (SKB).

The ship was designed to transport radioactive material from Swedish nuclear power plants to SKB’s facilities in Oskarshamn and Forsmark. The vessel can transport up to 12 nuclear waste containers, as well as standard cargo containers or special trucks.

The Barsebäck Nuclear Power Plant has two reactorsthat have been decommissioned since 1999 and 2005, respectively.

VERNON — Greater-than-anticipated amounts of groundwater — 90,000 gallons so far — are encroaching into a key building at Vermont Yankee, and plant administrators are weighing options to deal with the contaminated liquid.

Those options include shipping the water — which an official described as having “slight radioactive contamination” — to an out-of-state storage facility. There also has been preliminary talk of releasing water that is within allowable pollution limits into the Connecticut River, though state officials say they’ve not received any request to do so from plant owner Entergy.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission also is monitoring the water situation, and it appears to be improving: The agency noted in a recent inspection report that “the groundwater intrusion rate has slowed considerably” at the nuclear plant’s turbine building, and there is still excess storage capacity to handle it.

“Our inspectors will continue to track Entergy’s efforts to address the issue, but it does not pose any threat to public health and safety,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

Entergy spokesman Marty Cohn said that, while the amount of water is unexpected, the issue itself was part of the company’s decommissioning plans and will not cause any significant additional costs. “We anticipated this water management program in our decommissioning costs estimate,” Cohn said. “All we’re doing now is figuring out how to dispose of it.”

Vermont Yankee ceased producing power in December 2014, and Entergy has spent the past year preparing the plant for an extended period of dormancy that will precede decommissioning. The NRC says Yankee is in a “post-operation transition phase.”

Last year, the NRC pulled its resident inspector from the plant. But the agency continues to visit and inspect the site. The most recent quarterly inspection report, dated Jan. 28, was based in part on two site visits and identified “no findings of safety significance.”

Within that report, however, is a paragraph saying the plant’s “radioactive water inventories were increasing due mainly to the intrusion of groundwater.” An NRC inspector “determined that VY is considering options regarding future disposal of on-site radioactive water inventory and is also considering options for future action to further mitigate groundwater intrusion,” the document says.

Sheehan said the issue is ongoing. Since the plant shut down, “Vermont Yankee has experienced greater groundwater intrusion into the lowest level of the turbine building,” he said. “Generally, the groundwater totals a few hundred gallons a day, though there are occasional spikes, including one recent day when the amount rose to about 1,500 gallons.”

He cited increased rainfall as one factor. A bigger problem is that the plant is no longer operational, since higher temperatures from power production had led to greater evaporation of intruding groundwater in the past.

Sheehan said Entergy has been working to slow the flow by hiring a contractor to seal cracks in the turbine building and drilling “interceptor wells” nearby. Cohn clarified that those are not deep wells, but rather horizontal holes that act as drainage routes. “What you’re trying to do is redirect the water,” Cohn said.

The NRC inspection report says Entergy is tracking the plant’s water inventory daily, and Sheehan said the company has been pumping and storing groundwater — about 90,000 gallons at this point. He characterized the liquid as having “slight radioactive contamination” after having come into contact with the turbine building.

Cohn said the location of the water is what dictates its contamination status. “Any water that comes into the protected area — rain, etc. — becomes part of our onsite radioactive water inventory,” he said. “We have to come up with ways to dispose of it.”

The NRC says Entergy is developing a radioactive water management plan for Vermont Yankee. Its scope will extend beyond the current groundwater intrusion issue; Sheehan said the site has more than 1 million gallons of radioactive water. That includes water in the torus, a doughnut-shaped reservoir at the base of the reactor building, and in a condensate storage tank.

Shipping radioactive water away from the plant appears to be the most immediate proposed disposal solution.

“One element of this plan would be to ship approximately 200,000 gallons of the torus water to U.S. Ecology Inc. in Idaho by truck for disposal,” Sheehan said. “Entergy last month submitted an exemption request to the NRC seeking approval for these shipments.” It wants an answer by April 15, he said.

While such a shipment falls under federal regulations, state officials say they are aware of Entergy’s request and want to keep an eye on any transfer of radioactive water. “We’re evaluating what kind of monitoring we would want to do,” said Trey Martin, deputy secretary of natural resources.

Some of the water could end up in the Connecticut River. “All nuclear power plants are allowed to discharge slightly radioactive water to adjoining waterways provided the radioactivity is within allowable federal limits,” Sheehan said.

Any proposed discharges would be likely to cause controversy, and they would be regulated by the state. Martin said his agency has no permit requests to review, so he can’t take a position on the matter at this point.

“(Entergy) would have to come to us to talk about a discharge,” Martin said. “If they do come to that, we’ll obviously take a very hard look at that.”

Also watching closely is Bill Irwin, the state Health Department’s radiological and toxicological sciences chief. At a meeting in Brattleboro last week, Irwin made the case for ongoing, intensive Vermont Yankee groundwater monitoring by both Entergy and the state.

“We certainly are interested in what’s occurring there relative both to the groundwater into the turbine building” and Entergy’s disposal plans, Irwin said Wednesday. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of information about that, and I’ve asked for additional information.”

Agelbert NOTE: The Vermont wit and humor is showcased below in EXCELLENT comments.

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Bob Stannard

I wonder if Neil Sheehan has ever stopped to think about how many times he’s said “it’s just slightly radioactive”? How much radiation is safe? Zero. There is no such thing as a safe level of radiation. Much like the lead poisoned water we’re hearing about radiation is cumulative. The more you get; the more you get to keep.

Meanwhile, Entergy is doing what it planned to do all along; confiscate as much of the decommissioning fund as possible and abrogate as much responsibility as possible. They would walk away from all of these old, leaking plants if they could. I’ve never had much faith in Neil Sheehan taking any action that was in the public’s best interest.

The NRC is funded by the industry it oversees. In Vermont we call that rabbits watching over lettuce.

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Terry Allen

Hi there Vermont, Martin Shkreli here (of 5000% price boost on life-saving drug fame) and I have a solution for you guys for the radioactive groundwater challenge. You are looking at it all wrong!! It is NOT a problem. It is an opportunity. Instead of trucking the radioactive toxic waste water to Idaho, send it to Flint, MI, and sell it to the local populace there. First of all it’s safer than their lead-contaminated water they have been drinking, and second, the health consequences are less documented and further out into the future, when likely Entergy will have figured out how to wash it’s hands (in Perrier) of the whole thing before any law suits wend their way to settlement. Win, win win win, win. Glad to help. The consulting bill is in the mail.

ReplyGreg Morgan

This is not a big problem – and one that has already been solved. Post 3 Mile Island, SNL’s Garrett Morris entered the reactor building with a mop and bucket. Problem solved. I looked for a link to the skit, but couldn’t dig it up. One of my SNL favorites. I am a bit worried about proposing this, fearing that it might be picked up as a good idea!?

Reply Jon Warren Lentz

Ship the tainted water to D.C. & plumb it to the Senator’s & Representative’s drinking fountains.

Posted by: AGelbert

VERNON – If Entergy wants to use the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund to pay for expenses such as property taxes, insurance and emergency preparedness, it’s going to have to tell the federal and state governments in advance.

On Thursday, the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled that requiring Entergy to provide such specifics in its notifications “will afford Vermont an opportunity, if it chooses, to dispute a specific disbursement” from the Vernon plant’s trust fund.

The licensing board’s decision is a victory for the state, and it is also an acknowledgment that many legal and regulatory battles – especially regarding controversial disbursements from the trust fund – have yet to be resolved.

“Although Entergy has stated in previous 30-day notices to the NRC that its disbursements are for ‘legitimate decommissioning’ expenses, this proceeding makes clear that Vermont and Entergy define the term differently,” the licensing board wrote.

Vermont Yankee stopped producing power Dec. 29, but decommissioning will take decades as the plant enters a period of extended dormancy called SAFSTOR. The speed of the cleanup process is reliant on how much cash is in the plant’s decommissioning trust fund, and that fund currently contains about half of the estimated $1.2 billion needed to finish the job.

Any use of the trust fund attracts scrutiny: For example, the state and Entergy are battling over the company’s plans to withdraw from the fund for spent nuclear fuel management and property tax payments.

Additionally, when Entergy asked for permission to stop sending 30-day advance notices to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission before dipping into the trust fund, Vermont officials objected on the grounds that the state wouldn’t be able to challenge those expenditures before they happened. The state was granted a hearing on the matter Aug. 31, but Entergy later decided to drop the license-amendment request and continue providing 30-day notifications.

But, as is often the case with Vermont Yankee matters, the argument did not end there. State officials had asked the licensing board to do two things before allowing Entergy to withdraw its request:

• First, the state wanted key parts of the case preserved – specifically the fact that, after much legal wrangling, Vermont had been granted two admissible arguments and a hearing. Otherwise, if Entergy walked away from the matter and refiled the same request later, Vermont “would be starting over again from scratch, without the benefit of the large amount of resources already expended in this proceeding,” officials wrote.

• Second, the state wanted Entergy to give far more detail on “specific expenses” from the trust fund when providing 30-day notices. Currently, the company does not detail its planned expenditures; it provides only the maximum amount it intends to withdraw from the fund during a specified time frame.

Thursday’s ruling by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board serves as the official termination of Entergy’s original license-amendment request, and it grants the state one of its demands – but only in part.

Siding with Entergy, the board declined to preserve any of the license-amendment case for future proceedings. “Vermont has not demonstrated sufficient legal harm to justify the sanction of turning a voluntary withdrawal into a withdrawal with prejudice,” the board wrote.

Also, board members said the state’s specific arguments in this case may not necessarily apply to any future license amendment filed by the company.

But the licensing board leaned toward the state’s point of view by requiring Entergy to specify in its 30-day notices when the company plans to use trust-fund cash for any of six purposes – all relating to issues that state officials had raised in the license-amendment case.

The six trust-fund uses that require disclosure are:

• Payment of $5 million to Vermont as part of a settlement agreement with the state.

• Emergency-preparedness costs.

• Shipments of non-radiological asbestos waste.

• Insurance.

• Property taxes.

• “Replacement of structures related to dry cask storage, such as a bituminous roof.”(Dry cask storage is the manner in which all of Vermont Yankee’s spent fuel eventually will be stored at the plant site.)

Entergy also must provide advance notice if it plans to use the trust fund for legal fees that were disputed in the license-amendment case.

There was one additional condition imposed by the licensing board – a condition that also had been recommended by the NRC staff: In a mechanism designed to give Vermont more time to respond to future regulatory changes proposed by Entergy, the company “must provide written notice to Vermont of any new license-amendment application relating to the decommissioning trust fund at the time such application is submitted to the NRC,” the board wrote.

In reaction to Thursday’s ruling, Entergy spokesman Marty Cohn said the company “will continue to abide by all NRC requirements, and we’re exploring our legal options.”

Though state officials didn’t get everything they wanted, Public Service Department Commissioner Chris Recchia lauded the licensing board’s decision.“I am pleased that the licensing board has seen the wisdom of Entergy notifying us of specific expenditures from the decommissioning trust fund,” Recchia said in a statement. “I think this will help us in being able to ensure that the funds are used appropriately and that decommissioning can occur at the earliest possible time.”

Monsta,As to the "feasibility" of the new scam to fleece the taxpayers, I suggest you try real hard to understand that the designers of these nuclear power pants knew damned good and well, WHEN THEY WERE DESIGNING THEM, that the day would come when they couldn't suck more electrical energy from fuel assemblies for PRIVATE corporate profit.

So NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN, the "feasibility" of vitrification, reprocessing or baby sitting in underground caves (all techniques are DECADES old already - they just haven't suckered all of us to pay for them YET), ALL of which will be PAID for by SOCIALIZED (i.e. we-the-people) is being "pondered".

This is not hard, Monsta. The people that PROFITED by owning STOCK in those nuclear power should be required to PAY for any baby sitting or reprocessing of "waste" radionuclide fuel assemblies, PERIOD.

Whether we like it or not there is nuclear waste and it has to be tackled somehow. Just because I provide an explanation on how to tackle the waste this doesn't equate to me being an advocate for nuclear energy. It is simply a case of trying to solve a long standing problem. Plus there are means to pay for this privately through some sort of levy system. If the tax payer must foot the bill then there has to be clear guidelines to stopping the plants or/and reducing any subsidy direct or otherwise in the near to medium future. If the technology is truly viable it should be able to stand on its two feet. In any case though this business of nuclear waste needs to be tackled before economic collapse because without abundant sources of energy managing and disposing of this waste gets a whole lot harder. It is boondoggle but this rubbish needs a solution in the near future and waiting will just increase the costs further.

In reality nuclear energy is not compatible with a long energy future and has to be wound down; part of that winding down though will involve tackling the nuclear waste issue though. If the taxpayer has to pay to get this thing wound up then that is bad and should be avoided if possible but if there are no other means it needs to be done as this problem needs to be sorted as quickly as possible. A long delay will just increase the costs for future generations who are unlikely to have the same capacity to deal with this issue.

Yes - it must be "wound down" and "tackled". I like your semantics or "choice of words" in your comment Monsta. Are you running for any "office"?

Hey Monsta, as long you pay for the "tackling", go for it. Nuclear energy was NEVER "cost effective" or a "benefit" to society. I WON'T PAY for other people's TOXIC WASTE, PERIOD. And I do not really care if that leads us to extinction. If you do the crime and want to socialize the time, then to HELL with human society!

And by the way, the effect of future generations is FAR MORE DIRE form burning fossil fuels, but I don't hear you demanding drastic GOVERNMENT FUNDED measures to STOP burning fossil fuels and go to 100% Renewable energy within a decade or so.

Sorry old chum, I think your position lacks objectivity.

Posted by: AGelbert

I was googling articles on the viability of storing high-grade nuclear waste under the ocean beds and it would seem this idea while challenging could be feasible. What is more due to characteristics of the ocean bed it would not require any further active measures to contain the radioactive waste. In some of the ocean beds the rock formation share a number of favourable characteristics namely they are not permeable to water absorption but can absorb any leaks from the canisters themselves. In addition they have a natural plasticity meaning that any breaches in the containment would be sealed by the actual rock formation. Finally if there are number of highly stable regions that have not shown any notable seismic activity in tens of millions of years which is a long enough time-frame to make these materials inert.

In the end these measures will face a lot of political and social opposition and this is before you consider the international laws in place. I do know that the London Convention does not place a distinction between conventional ocean dumping and the placement of waste under the sea bed. However that treaty is due to expire around 2018 so in theory you could have enough time to get this idea of the ground provided you plug it in the right places. One of the disadvantages mentioned about this method is that it becomes difficult to retrieve the waste at a later date. However even that is not impossible. For example most of the proposed solutions to this disposal involve vitrification of the waste (to make the waste safer and less prone to nuclear proliferation) and then using rigs similar to oil extraction to bore holes in the actual ocean floor. Those regions are marked in some measure so if those vessels need to be recovered at a later date it could be possible.

Monsta,As to the "feasibility" of the new scam to fleece the taxpayers, I suggest you try real hard to understand that the designers of these nuclear power pants knew damned good and well, WHEN THEY WERE DESIGNING THEM, that the day would come when they couldn't suck more electrical energy from fuel assemblies for PRIVATE corporate profit.

So NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN, the "feasibility" of vitrification, reprocessing or baby sitting in underground caves (all techniques are DECADES old already - they just haven't suckered all of us to pay for them YET), ALL of which will be PAID for by SOCIALIZED (i.e. we-the-people) is being "pondered".

This is not hard, Monsta. The people that PROFITED by owning STOCK in those nuclear power should be required to PAY for any baby sitting or reprocessing of "waste" radionuclide fuel assemblies, PERIOD.

After EVERY CENT those stockholders (the records over the past 60 years clearly contain everybody, including pension funds, who fed at that trough so they CANNOT hide) made in profits is spent taking care of the nuclear CRAP, then, and ONLY THEN, can we discuss the feasibility of making ALL OF US foot the bill for that TOXIC WASTE.

People are getting just a little tired of the old "Privatize the profits and socialize the costs" BALONEY.

The other rather important aspect of the Manhattan project is that it was the beginning of the secret, behind-the-scenes shadow government that now controls everything in the West. Until then, we had pretty good transparency built into our system. From the Manhattan Project, we got NSA, CIA, USMIC, and a load of other nasty little acronyms that all mean secret government.

I suggest we store a couple of truckloads of nuclear waste in the basement of any government building whose occupants work for departments with initials like that.

As long as the stockholders who profited from the utilities that ran those nuclear power plants are the only people taxed to pay the costs, I agree.

OREPA’s cost estimate, based on the cost of the bomb plant design through FY2016, reveals the current assurances of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and the National Nuclear Security Administration to be deceptively erroneous. “They are lowballing the actual cost of the project,” charged OREPA coordinator Ralph Hutchison. “And they are withholding information from the public about the money they have already spent. They know there is no way in the world they will build the UPF for $6.5 billion, even though they’ve scaled back the project and shifted major pieces to other lines in the budget. Still the UPF is on a trajectory to cost more than ten billion dollars.”

OREPA’s calculations, explained in the September 2015 UPF Update, are based on the simple calculation of total project cost from the cost of design.

“Our number is actually conservative,” said Hutchison. “We are cutting them slack because the UPF is a complicated project. And we’re not counting the first half billion dollars plus they spent on their first two designs.”

By the end of FY 2016 (September 30, 2016) the UPF bomb plant design team will have spent more than one billion dollars on the current design (since November 2013). The industry standard for calculating design cost as a fraction of total project cost is 3.5%; for complex projects, it can be as high as 6.5%.

“We’re saying the UPF design may be 10% of the total cost—which means the whole thing will cost over $10 billion. If they come in closer to the industry standard, the total cost will be even higher. And the longer they take, the more it will cost.”

Quote

The Uranium Processing Facility has been plagued by mismanagement, runaway cost projections, and schedules that recede toward infinity. It continues, year after year, to be listed on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk Projects” list.

Despite the problems, the UPF continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in the budget. Rather than be accountable to the public for the money it is spending, the UPF project managers and contractor representatives hold secret meetings with Senator Alexander, chair of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. The subcommittee holds the purse strings for the UPF.

The NNSA has declined to provide any numbers or cost projections related to the UPF, saying it will wait until the design is 90% complete before hazarding a guess about the total cost.

OREPA also wrote to Senator Alexander on Friday, September 4, demanding accountability for the money spent so far on the UPF design. “We still live in a democracy,” Hutchison said, “Even here in Tennessee. In a democracy, taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going. And the government has a duty to disclose.”

## The UPF Update, September 2015 is available here. ## The letter to Alexander is available here.

For more information: Ralph Hutchison +1 865 776 5050

The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance works to stop nuclear weapons production at the Y - 12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This is a tightly moderated list which includes a wide range of members from across the country. It is strictly limited to matters of concern to OREPA and its work to abolish nuclear weapons.

Posted by: AGelbert

Reason is not enough to halt the nuclear juggernaut that rumbles unsteadily toward catastrophe, toward omnicide.

The broken heart of humanity must find a way to enter the debate. The heart must find common cause with imagination. We cannot wait until the missiles are in the air with the sand falling through the hourglass. We must use our imaginations. We must listen to the sad stories of those who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki and imagine the force of the winds, the firestorms rushing through our cities, the mushroom clouds rising, the invisible radiation spreading. If we can’t imagine the death and destruction, we cannot combat it and we will never stop it.

David KriegerWe are trapped by our myopia and lethargy, the forces that keep us impotent in the face of the nuclear threat. I call these forces ACID: Apathy, Conformity, Ignorance and Denial. ACID is corrosive to our common future. ACID is the collection of obstacles to change that is preventing us from ending the nuclear weapons era and preserving the human future.

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Our challenge is to move from ACID to Action by changing apathy to empathy; conformity to critical thinking; ignorance to wisdom; and denial to recognition.

Apathy is indifference, a recipe for maintaining the status quo. Empathy is the result of imagining oneself in another’s shoes, in this case the shoes of those who were victims of the atomic bombings, either at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or victims of atmospheric nuclear testing.

Conformity is going along with the herd mentality, like lemmings over a cliff. Critical thinking is a means of breaking with the herd, of seeing the dangers in what is commonly considered acceptable. Apply critical thinking to nuclear deterrence theory and you find a theory that cannot be proven and is subject to failure. Nuclear deterrence cannot, for example, stand up to terrorists, those who have no territory or are suicidal. Nor can deterrence theory apply to leaders who are not rational, and most leaders are not fully rational in times of extreme crisis.

Ignorance is not knowing, or thinking one knows that which is just plain wrong. It is a result of disinterest or a warped perspective. It bends toward extreme arrogance or hubris, and includes an absurd and dangerous belief in human infallibility. Wisdom is grasping our human fallibility and acting to prevent it from leading to disaster.

Denial is putting on blindfolds and failing to see a problem or threat that would otherwise be obvious. It is countered by recognition of the threat, in the case of nuclear weapons by recognition of the threat to all humanity.

We must move from ACID to action, from education to engagement, starting with the recognition that nuclear weapons undermine security, provide no physical protection, threaten civilization and complex life, and are subject to human fallibility. They are the ultimate evil for they threaten all we love and cherish.

What can you do? Start with A-B-C. Awaken. Believe. Contribute. Awaken to the threat (be aware, attentive and active). Believe you can make a difference on this most critical of issues. Contribute time, talent, money, ideas. Everyone has something they can contribute, and it will take many of us joining together to achieve the goal. Beyond A-B-C, stand up, speak out and join in. Be a nonviolent warrior for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons. Choose hope and keep hope alive, and persevere and never give up.

This entry was posted in Peace, President's Message and tagged David Krieger on September 24, 2015 by David Krieger.

Posted by: AGelbert

It’s a shame the group didn’t bring a shovel to check below the surface. At Vermont Yankee, Entergy plans to remove non-contaminated foundations to just three feet below the surface, then cover the mess with dirt and pretend it’s back to the original condition. Sure, it’ll look pretty to a casual visitor, but if Entergy gets its way the VY site will forever be a mess.